By Pat Harty

IOWA CITY, Iowa – The Hawk Fanatic/KCJJ radio show and podcast sometimes goes off course, or as we like to call it, drifting.

Music is often where the drifting takes us, but in Wednesday’s show, a question by a regular caller triggered a conversation about who are the funniest head coaches that I’ve met along the way.

Someone else then called asking who are the most unpleasant head coaches I’ve dealt with in over 30 years of covering the Iowa Hawkeyes.

That answer was easy – Bob Knight, and it isn’t even close.

Knight was in what proved to be the last decade of his Indiana coaching career when I started covering the Iowa beat in 1992.

I probably covered about dozen of Knight’s post-game press conferences, including the time in January 2000 when Steve Alford returned to his alma mater for the first time as the Iowa head coach.

Knight was so unpleasant in his post-game press conference that he made Alford a sympathetic figure if you can actually believe that.

Indiana had hung on for a 74-71 victory before 17,000 Hoosier fans at Assembly Hall in Bloomington, Ind.

But for Knight, the thrill of victory was no match for the anger he felt with how the media had covered Alford’s much-anticipated return.

Alford was a Hoosier legend, a key piece to Indiana’s 1987 NCAA championship team as a sharp-shooting guard.

So what should have been sort of a celebration, especially since Indiana had prevailed, turned into yet another Knight tirade after the game.

The story simmering under the surface was that Knight and Alford hadn’t spoken since Alford was hired as the Iowa head coach.

They didn’t even speak to each other at Big Ten Media Day, which fueled speculation about their relationship being strained.

Knight said in his post-game press conference that it was a problem of miscommunication, and not bad feelings.

His anger grew with each word as his face turned beat red.

“If Alford wants to sit down and talk to me instead of holding press conferences about a lot of bull, I’ll be glad to sit down and talk to him and explain things to him a little bit,” Knight said. “If that’s what in fact he wants to do, instead of going through a lot of bull in press conferences.”

Knight finally had hit it.

“That’s enough,” he said. “I’m going to leave this one comment: Alford has never asked me to do anything that I haven’t done. Period. And I’m a little bit tired of the bull that’s attached to this.”

Knight then left the press room briefly before returning, still clearly in a rage as he was shouting at the media.

“Why didn’t I talk to him at the Big Ten meeting? There were 10 other coaches there and I didn’t get a chance to speak to seven of them,” Knight said. “Six other guys besides him I didn’t talk to.”

It’s hard to remember any press conference in which Bob Knight was friendly.

He certainly had his good side, but his inability to control his temper is what stood out the most, and is what ultimately led to Bob Knight’s demise at Indiana.

As for the funniest head coaches I’ve covered along the way, former Iowa football coach Hayden Fry is the first of very few that come to mind.

Fry had a gift for gab and for rebuilding downtrodden football programs.

He loved his own jokes, and he often told jokes at the expense of those around him, including myself.

Fry used a lot of funny catch phrases when speaking with the media; his unique sense of humor rooted in his west Texas upbringing.

But Fry also had a serious side, which he showed when he threatened to smack any Iowa player he caught smiling after a 21-6 loss at Oklahoma in his second game as the Iowa head coach in 1979.

The game was more competitive than what had been expected with Iowa a five-touchdown underdog, but Fry was in no mood for a moral victory afterwards.

So when a reporter opened the post-game press conference by saying to Fry that “your team had played a pretty good game,” Fry bristled before firing back:

“I just talked to my players about that. First, we got our butts kicked. Then we get complimented. I just told the team that if I see one single man with a smile on his face, I’ll bust him in the mouth. Losing is losing and we didn’t play well.

“These kids have been babied and pampered so much when they lose that it makes me sick. Losing and looking good is a bunch of crap.”

Iowa had suffered through 17 consecutive non-winning seasons when Fry took over as head coach and he was trying to change the culture.

So there was a time for jokes, and for being a hard-nosed coach as Fry made both look easy with his charisma, while so many other head coaches haven’t been able to juggle the two sides.

It’s hard to think of many head college coaches in football and men’s basketball that could be described as funny.

Fry built a vast coaching tree as many of his assistant coaches would go on become highly successful head coaches; a list that includes current Iowa head coach Kirk Ferentz, former Kansas State head coach Bill Snyder and former Wisconsin head coach Barry Alvarez.

Ferentz, with his dry sense of humor, can be funny when he tries to be, and usually at his expense. But he isn’t too concerned with making people laugh, nor should he be.

Snyder was the same way, meticulous in his approach, but with no interest in making people laugh.

Alvarez was also a person not to joke with as I found out while covering Big Ten Media Day in Chicago in the mid-1990s.

Alvarez had coached under Fry at Iowa from 1979 to 1986, so I figured Alvarez wouldn’t mind being asked about the person who had given him his big break in coaching.

However, I was wrong as Alvarez brushed me off like lint on a shirt, a moment I’ll never forget. He gave the impression that he had been asked countless times about Fry’s influence, and that he was tired of addressing it.

Okay, fair enough, I thought, but that brief encounter sort of changed how I felt about Barry Alvarez.

I never had the opportunity to cover former college football coach Mike Leach, which was my loss since he was certainly one of a kind.

His interviews and press conferences often would drift to topics that had no connection to football, such as his disdain for candy corn and his obsession with bigfoot, the whole time speaking with a straight face.

Sadly, Leach passed away on Dec. 12, 2022 at the age of just 61, leaving behind a rich legacy built around his success with spread offenses and his unusual and sometimes bizarre sense of humor.

Some might be surprised to learn that former Purdue men’s basketball coach Gene Keady had a funny side because he so often looked angry as he coached with his famous scowl.

Away from the court, though, Keady was completely different. He had a dry sense of humor and there were no signs of his scowl.

As intimidating as Keady was on the court, he was easy to approach away from the court.

Keady once returned a call when I was in the shower, and he actually waited for me to dry off and get dressed.

Even to this day, I still can’t believe that he waited for some no-name reporter from Iowa City.

The fact that he even called back was unusual.

Former Michigan State men’s basketball coach Jud Heathcote was also much funnier than you would have expected from how he acted in games where he almost always seem to have an angry expression on his face and rarely smiled.

Away from the games, though, Heathcote could be hilarious. He didn’t smile when telling jokes, but he made those around him smile with his delivery and wit.

I never had the privilege of covering Lee Corso as a head coach, but from listening to some who did, Corso was a joy to cover and a joke waiting to happen.

The same sense of humor that helped to make Corso a huge success as an ESPN college football analyst was apparently also part of his coaching personality.

Corso enjoyed making people laugh, and he had gift for it.

Corso and I once crossed paths at an airport in Tampa, Florida as we both waited for our flight.

It was so early in the morning that it still was dark out.

When I finally worked up enough nerve to introduce myself to Corso, he couldn’t have been nicer or more receptive.

Upon learning that I covered the Iowa football team, Corso joked proudly about ruining Hayden Fry’s Iowa coaching debut.

He was referring to the 1979 season opener when Iowa fell 30-26 to Corso’s Indiana squad despite having led 26-3 at halftime.

But Corso also spoke highly of Fry as a coach and as a person who had a unique sense of humor. If I remember correctly, Corso joked about Fry being almost as funny as him.

With exception to Hayden Fry, it’s hard to think of any Iowa head coaches – past or present – that would qualify as being overly funny.

Tom Davis was friendly and gracious, as was Lisa Bluder, while Todd Lickliter was aloof and a little strange.

Fran McCaffery was highly emotional, and he obviously had a temper. But Fran also had a softer side and would joke with reporters every now and then.

Steve Alford rarely cracked jokes, and he also had bad habit of making excuses and throwing his players under the bus during tough times.

Former Iowa women’s basketball coach C. Vivian Stringer was soft-spoken and she wasn’t concerned with trying to be funny, while current head coach Jan Jensen loves to engage with reporters and talk hoops, but is more serious than funny.

Iowa wrestling coach Tom Brands can make you laugh even without trying to be funny because he just has a way about him. It comes natural, sort of like with Hayden Fry and Lee Corso.